When Cadillac launched its new Daytona Prototype International (DPi), based on the Dallara P217, it tried to keep some of the key parts of its design a secret. To do this it took inspiration from both Formula 1 team Red Bull Racing and also the Royal Navy in World War 1.

Motor racing has something of a reputation for cloak and dagger activities, if it is not the ‘Grand Prix Sabotuers’ of World War 2 that Joe Saward is always so keen to chat about, it is modern industrial espionage, stolen technologies and sabotaged machinery. Because of this racing teams, especially manufacturer backed teams, are always keen to keep technical details of their cars under wraps for as long as possible. Many methods have been used from the crude human walls used by Audi Sport at Le Mans in 2016 to the liberal and energetic use of blankets to cover sensitive parts.

When Cadillac decided to shakedown its new DPi-V.R it was a little more cunning about the way it tried to keep things under wraps, it did it with a wrap. That is not a typo.
For quite a few years it has been common place for manufacturers to wrap their new cars, both race and road, in black and white liveries featuring what seem to be wild and outlandish designs. This is nothing new, in fact the technique dates back to a Victorian gentleman called Norman Wilkinson who was schooled in Hertfordshire, England. Wilkinson was an artist and his first professional work was for the Illustrated London News, though he went on to have a solid career creating promotional artwork for British railway companies.
Born in 1878 Wilkinson was a bit too old for service in the trenches when World War 1 broke out in 1914, but he still did his bit. He joined the Royal Navy Reserves and found himself assigned to anti submarine duties in the Dardanelles and Gibraltar. He saw first hand the effectiveness of the German U-Boat and was spurred on to come up with a workable solution.(A painting by Wilkinson depicting Royal Navy ships)
He came up with a strange but rather bright idea, to cover the surfaces of a ship with odd geometric shapes, which would distort the vessel’s overall shape and make it hard to understand the direction of travel. All of which made it harder for the U-Boats to target them. Each ship had a different ‘dazzle’ camouflage and many students at the Royal College of Arts in London were roped in to design them during both World War 1 and World War 2.(What one publication in 1922 though the Dazzle camouflage would look like in a periscope)
It was not a totally new concept, indeed a Zoologist had suggested to Liberal Party politician and First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill that Zebra stripes be used on battleships to break up the Horizon.
Going back further a similar idea from the fashion industry had been used on cars by Sonia Delaunay (below) but for no other reason than it looked good. Indeed cubists and modern artists including Pablo Picasso later tried to claim that it was they who had invented Dazzle camouflage.
Over the years it became clear that these ‘Dazzleship’ schemes made it very hard to understand the shape of an object and the latter part of the 20th century the mass market automotive industry started to use ‘Dazzleship’ camouflage on prototype models to hide them from prying eyes and the media.
Its first really prominent use in motor racing only came in the 21st century, at first in NASCAR when manufacturer backed stockcar bodies were wrapped in the monochrome schemes but later the European’s remembered the technique and perhaps ironically German company Porsche used it to great effect on its first 919 Hybrid LMP1 cars. By now Dazzle camouflage had evolved from odd geometric shapes to curious almost psychedelic curves, squiggles and coils on a cars bodywork.
Which brings us back to the new Cadillac racecar, when it rolled out for its shakedown run the Dallara built machine was wrapped in a ‘Dazzleship’ scheme. That alone was not especially noteworthy but Cadillac took it a step further with inspiration from Red Bull Racing.
The British based Austrian owned team is no stranger to using ‘Dazzle’ camouflage on its cars, indeed when it rolled out its 2015 RB15, it was with a ‘Dazzle’ wrap, but with deference still paid to major sponsors of course. But in the past Red Bull has taken things much further, it has used visual deception techniques on the bodywork of its cars to fool onlookers into thinking major components are located in different positions.
In 2010 in the final days of Formula 1 pre season testing at Barcelona Red Bull tried to disguise its new exhaust layout. To do this it simply placed stickers which looked like the real thing exactly where you would expect them to be. A casual glance would make you think that all was normal, but compare the photos above and below and you soon notice the difference.
In the picture above the exhaust is exactly where it was expected to be, but in the one below the exhaust exit has been replaced by a sticker which looks like an exhaust exit. But the real exhaust exit sits lower on the bodywork, the first use of the now banned ‘blown diffuser’. In Red Bull’s case the deception worked for about 30 minutes, but attracted a huge amount of attention, but the attention was all on the stickers and not the purpose of the re-located tail pipes.
Cadillac combined both techniques when it rolled out the Dpi-V.R in what seems to be a first in motor racing. Not only did it use a ‘Dazzleship’ wrap it also used the wrap to place fake ducting on the bodywork just like Red Bull did back in 2010, and like Red Bull, for a few moments it worked.
A set of louvres, a brake duct and a engine cover air extractor all appear in the image above, but all of them are fake simply printed on the wrap in an attempt to throw onlookers off the scent.
But this technique only really works when a car is viewed by the naked eye on track, on film in motion or from a fixed angle in photos. In the picture (above/below) the deception works well and the Cadillac Dpi-V.R looks to have a ducted nose.
From another angle however the deception is obvious. Had Cadillac only used fixed angle static photos and slightly blurry dynamic shots the deception would have worked, indeed it almost did when putting together our technical analysis page on this website.
It seems that the brake ducts were copied from the Lotus LMP2 or an ORECA, the outlet on the engine cover from an Audi, and the horizonal vents, they either came from a Peugeot 908 or the GM designer just made em up!

Ultimately Cadillac’s visual deception attempt failed, as did Red Bull’s in 2010. The effectiveness of ‘Razzle Dazzle’ as the Americans put it was unclear in both World Wars too, though there is some evidence it did have some effect. But its use in motor racing to date seems to have been a failure,
perhaps these techniques are best left to 20th century naval warfare?

Sam Collins has worked for Racecar Engineering for more than a decade. His passion for racing began during his work experience in the loom shop of Williams F1 aged 16 and he has been involved in the sport ever since. Sam attended Oxford Brookes University to study Automotive Engineering and has written for many publications since, including Motorsport News and Autosport. He is Associate Editor of Racecar Engineering

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